Physics of Zen Pinball

I really want to like Zen Pinball.

The graphics are fantastic, the sounds are getting better, and I applaud Zen for trying to take pinball in new directions.

The problem is that I absolutely hate the ball physics! In my experience pinball has a somewhat fast & floaty feeling and Pinball Arcade duplicates this very nicely. Zen on the other hand feels muted and overly heavy. I always feel like I am not hitting the ball hard enough and cradling the ball is a fairly trivial matter since the ball doesn't have much bounce back and loses its momentum pretty quickly.

What do you guys/gals think?

Yeah, their physics are definitely watered down. The other thing that really bothers me is that their flippers are significantly closer together than real pinball machines, which makes it much too easy to keep the ball going and zaps the challenge. I asked them about all this on their forum awhile back and they told me it's because they're trying to appeal to casual gamers. This is unfortunate in my opinion. My main complaint about the gaming industry in general is that games just aren't as challenging as they used to be....

Their tables certainly look nice, but I just can't get into them after playing so much real pinball. This is why I'm so thankful that Farsight is giving us the real deal with TPA.

However, I do applaud Zen for introducing new players to pinball.....hopefully those new guys will be inspired to try the real thing.

I hear you on the difficulty side. I had to give up on my very first game of Ms. Spolsion Man (360) after 45 minutes because I didn't think the game was ever going to end and I had things to do.

I'm also in the "want to love Zen, but simply can't" camp! I own a few real pinball machines and I'm convinced that FarSight's physics are much closer to the real thing than Zen. Although it wouldn't really matter once you get used to Zen's physics, I guess... My MAIN problem with Zen's tables is that their rulesets are simply no fun. And my biggest gripe lies with the absence of audio and light cues that are INTUITIVE! I mean, compare ToM's or TotAN's way of communicating the table's goals at any given time in real-time. This often creates a sence of urgency as well... I have yet to play a Zen table that has a voice that guides you to mission completion. I think this is one of the most important elements in modern pinball machines: to know what you have to do at any given moment through the combination of light cues, audio cues and DMD prompts.

I played Zen for the first time after a few months of WPHOF on the PS3, and just didn't felt right. Not bouncy enough, too heavy.
But without too much r/l pinball experience I might have said the opposite if I'd tried Zen first...
There's even a big difference between the WPHOF and TPA, in TPA the ball feels a lot more "connected" and controllable. For me TPA definitely feels the best.

Just my experience...

I worked at a pizza place for several years and spent a lot of time on the different pinball machines that came in. Black Knight 2000, Adams Family, Whirl Wind, Funhouse, and others. My absolute favorite was Taxi, maybe a bit simplistic for some but I though it had perfect balance.

Anyway, When Pinball Hall of Fame came out I snatched it up for PSP and eventually Xbox 360 and the feel for Taxi was so spot on, it was amazing. It really felt right, the ball did all the same things I remember. The other game were spot on too, but Taxi really hit home to me.

Fast forward a year or two and I get an iPad 2 and eventually I come across Zen Pinball and Sorcerer's Lair. And among all the other pinball games out there it felt "right" to me. It's a great fun table to play and I played it a lot waiting on Pinball Arcade.

Fast forward again. Pinball Arcade is released for iPad, I was one of the early folks who had issues getting the tables. And I have to say the 1st time I played Arabian Nights I was a bit disappointed, the ball didn't feel right to me at all. To confirm I went back to my Xbox and the ball feel quite a bit differnt then the iPad version. iPad version seems a lot more "floaty and bouncy" the Xbox version. It's pretty obvious on the ball launch they the are not the same. I've never played Arabian Knights as a real table so I am not sure which one is closer. All Have to go on is that the Xbox and PSP versions of Taxi are real close to what I remember.

I've gotten used to the changes in feel, but it seems it's a lot easier to catch the ball on Xbox then iPad. I'm hoping Taxi will eventually make on iPad, and then I'll really be able to tell any differences.

Astro, the physics on TPA have been greatly improved over the physics present in the PHOF collections. This is coming from someone who plays 4-5 hours on real tables every week, including the four launch tables. Zen Pinball / Pinball FX are good for what they are...arcade style pinball. Trying to compare Zen Pinball with The Pinball Arcade is like comparing Burnout to Gran Turismo.

Hi guys. First post.
The biggest problem with zen is this imo. - the table nudge feature is totally useless. It hardly alters the ball path at all, and you can nudge it twice in a few seconds, then just one nudge a few minutes later will tilt the machine! Ridiculous.
I actually like the ball weight and speed, but it doesn't bounce enough, you can hit the bloody thing and really hard only to see it comes back down a ramp. I think this is very annoying and spoils the game.
The instructions and table goals are awful too. Compare rescuing the princess on totan, to destroying the robot on fx2's earth defence. The amount of time and things to achieve are too long and difficult and combined with the pathetic table nudge mean I only play this in frustrated circumstances occasionally.
I love the graphics and lighting, but a few small issues in my eyes spoil the game across the board.

I find some of the statements here questionable at best. Play a game of TOTAN on TPA, then watch this video here: http://pinball.org/videos/gameplay-videos/tales-of-the-arabian-nights/.

TOTAN on TPA is ridiculously bouncy and chaotic. The real game is much tighter. The ball in TPA clearly has nearly 0 weight to it. Try to do a drop catch and the ball will bounce halfway up the table. Try to do the bounce pass and the ball literally bounces like 20 times. This just isn't accurate at all. It has nothing to do with the red rubber either, as Ripley has the same but the ball definitely has more weight to it. Ripley is easily the most accurate of them all. Pinball FX 2 is much much more accurate than TPA. I just don't see it as debatable.

I enjoy TPA a lot, but i'm not going to pretend the physics are impressive. The ball rolls at nearly the same speed from top to bottom. It lacks any momentum whatsoever.

And to people claiming Zen doesn't bounce enough.. that's false. Clearly you can see in the video when the ball is traveling from the top of the table to the bottom without much resistance, the ball bounces off the flipper and goes about halfway to 3/4ths of the way up the bottom bumpers, just like in Zen. It never goes halfway up the table like in TPA. You can watch the video I posted and skip to 18:25-18:31 to see exactly what I'm talking about.

The proof is in the pudding. Real pinball is just no where near as bouncy as it is in this game. You cannot pull off half the moves in it that you can with real pinball or Pinball FX or even Zen. This isn't debatable, it's a fact.

PiN WiZ said:

Astro, the physics on TPA have been greatly improved over the physics present in the PHOF collections. This is coming from someone who plays 4-5 hours on real tables every week, including the four launch tables. Zen Pinball / Pinball FX are good for what they are...arcade style pinball. Trying to compare Zen Pinball with The Pinball Arcade is like comparing Burnout to Gran Turismo.

Click to expand...

That's a strange write up. How come in Pinball FX you can do a drop catch? Something that is extremely important to real pinball.. yet Pinball FX is only "arcade style" pinball. How come you can't do it in TPA which is apparently the simulation?

Zen is not nearly bouncy enough, and those moves you speak of are TOO easy in Pinball FX. You can even just hold your flipper up as a VERY fast moving ball is coming in and it'll almost always stop it after a small bounce (I'm not talking about a drop catch, but holding the flipper up the whole time). The ball barely even bounces. That isn't how it works in real life unless the table is in need of some maintenance.

I agree that TPA is a bit too bouncy, but not much. It's pretty close to the real thing and ball control is very possible.

That's my main complaint about Zen... Not bouncy enough. I do enjoy playing it (mostly for the split-screen duels with the wife), but the lack of bounce drives me nuts. I also get the feel that the table is straight up and sounds too "plastic" when the ball hits things. Flippers are too close together too, game is way easier than the real thing.

chris said:

I find some of the statements here questionable at best.

Click to expand...

True, but I would have to add some of your statements to that sentiment as well.

chris said:

Ripley has the same but the ball definitely has more weight to it. Ripley is easily the most accurate of them all.

Click to expand...

True for the first part, but I would differ on your second statement. After Ripleys was updated on Android to be more stable with the framerate (before it was in-between cycles or whatever), I found it to be rather sluggish. I've gotten used to it now, but I couldn't say that it's more realistic...

chris said:

Pinball FX 2 is much much more accurate than TPA. I just don't see it as debatable.

Click to expand...

I guess the debate we are having here proves the opposite

You have referred to a video for comparison purposes in your post, but I - like several others here - actually own real pinball machines that I play regularly. Pinball FX 2 does not feel like a real pinball machine to me at all. I sometimes can't believe how bouncy / fast / frantic / uncontrollable the ball becomes on my Rollergames and Revenge From Mars with new rubbers.

chris said:

I enjoy TPA a lot, but i'm not going to pretend the physics are impressive.

Click to expand...

While I won't say that TPA is perfect, it by far exceeds in the FEEL category when compared to Pinball FX 2. The other problem I have with Zen's game has been stated in my previous post in this thread.

I'm looking forward to the ongoing and constructive discussion...

PinFreak68 said:

That's my main complaint about Zen... Not bouncy enough. I do enjoy playing it (mostly for the split-screen duels with the wife), but the lack of bounce drives me nuts. I also get the feel that the table is straight up and sounds too "plastic" when the ball hits things. Flippers are too close together too, game is way easier than the real thing.

Click to expand...

Agreed. And yeah the split-screen multiplayer is really nice. That's something I'd love to see in TPA eventually.

@goforthewall:

Good post.

For Chris to be holding a non-debatable opinion, he sure seems to be in the minority

chris said:

That's a strange write up. How come in Pinball FX you can do a drop catch? Something that is extremely important to real pinball.. yet Pinball FX is only "arcade style" pinball. How come you can't do it in TPA which is apparently the simulation?

Click to expand...

Sorry Chris, I never implied that the physics on TPA were perfect, but that they were greatly improved over the physics on the PHOF. By the way, I can do a drop catch on TPA fairly easy. Yes the ball takes a little more bounce than it does on a real table, but I have no problem pulling it off. If FarSight was to reduce the bounce somewhat, the physics would be even closer. I stand by saying Zen is arcade pinball because of the unrealistic table designs and physics. I still like playing Pinball FX (I own every table), but I would never compare it to TPA cause they're two different styles of pinball.

I couldn't tell which TOTAN version was closer to the real table, as I've never played it. It's been a while so my Taxi reference may be a little stale too. But there is no doubt in my mind that there is a difference between TOTAN on PHOF and TPA.

It would be great to get some gravity\physics sliders to play with. But I know that would really mess with comparing high scores.

chris said:

Real pinball is just no where near as bouncy as it is in this game. You cannot pull off half the moves in it that you can with real pinball or Pinball FX or even Zen.

Click to expand...

Farsight has spent hundreds of hours tuning each table to match the gameplay to the actual tables, which they just so happen to have sitting there in the office with them. Zen (FX 2) on the other hand makes fantasy tables with no real life counter part. Now which one of these two companies do you think managed to get the physics to more closely match real pinball? I'll give you a hint, it isn't Zen.

P.S. Opinions are always debatable.

chris said:

That's a strange write up. How come in Pinball FX you can do a drop catch? Something that is extremely important to real pinball.. yet Pinball FX is only "arcade style" pinball. How come you can't do it in TPA which is apparently the simulation?

Click to expand...

In Zen it is almost impossible not to do a drop catch. The ball stops moving almost instantaneously. Besides, I do drop catches in TPA all the time, the only difference is that in TPA it requires some small measure of skill.

ND3G said:

In Zen it is almost impossible not to do a drop catch. The ball stops moving almost instantaneously. Besides, I do drop catches in TPA all the time, the only difference is that in TPA it requires some small measure of skill.

Click to expand...

Good call.

I remember reading on Farsight's FB page awhile back that they can go to their real TOTAN machine and let the ball drop from the genie to the flippers and it bounces exactly the same height as it does in their virtual version of TOTAN. I think it would be amazing if they made a video demonstrating that kind of stuff, maybe split-screen with the real thing on one side and TBA on the other. It would really help to silence the critics, and it would just be cool to see in general....maybe I'll make a new thread requesting this to see if it's something they could do.

The other thing Chris needs to keep in mind is that the videos on pinball.org/PAPA are of PRO players who can make difficult moves look very easy, on real pinball machines that do indeed have quite a bit of "bounce".

nd3g said:

...in TPA it requires some small measure of skill.

Click to expand...

Exactly my point...